Dear Mom,

I write to you often about what I wish I could have told you before you died. All the thoughts I kept quiet. The secrets I kept hidden. The feelings I swallowed. I wonder, was there anything you wanted to tell me before you died? As you were dying?

I was the last one to arrive to the hospice. I rushed from the airport to say goodbye. You looked at me and said, “You made it, how was your flight?” I could be wrong, but that’s how I remember it. And then the morphine was turned up and you never spoke another word. At least not to me. I know your mind wasn’t right at that moment. I know your tumor had caused strokes and it was pressing on parts of your brain that affected your thoughts. But I have to wonder anyway. If you weren’t on morphine, what would your last words have been? How would you have ended your dialogue? Our dialogue.

I still have your voicemail messages. I keep them saved on my phone, which often causes my mailbox to be full. But I don’t care. I refuse to delete them. I refuse to fully let go. Every so often, when I need a good cry, I listen to them. It’s not the reminder of your absence that causes my eyes to water, rather it’s the fact that those last messages to me weren’t really from you. Not the you I’d come to know so well. This was the last act version of you. You with memory loss and confusion. You with repetition and worry. You with a fear to your voice. But it’s also you with an untethered humor. I might cry every time I listen, but I also end up laughing. I laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation and at the words you left behind. My favorite will always be the short message you left apologizing for missing my call because you were getting waxed.

I can hear the love in your goodnights. The fear in your ‘call me backs’. The urgency in your desire to hear my voice. But as the messages go by, and as your last day approaches, I can hear the change in your voice. It’s as if you’re aging years within a few days. It turns fragile. Unsure. Afraid. If I had to guess, you were beginning to understand that the end was near. You likely knew your days were limited. You probably called me so often, sometimes leaving multiple messages in one day, because you knew we both needed to hear each other’s voices. I wish I knew why you called me four times on October 5^th. Why I didn’t answer. Why I didn’t call back. Maybe I was working, and you forgot. Maybe I did call you back and I just don’t remember. Maybe, and this is the scenario that scares me the most, I didn’t want to talk to you.

Mom, it was so painful to talk with you back then. That last month of your life was full of tragedy. You weren’t you. You were confused. Sometimes even angry. You just wanted to go home. The doctors at the rehab center where you stayed after your brain surgery and before hospice kept telling you home was on the horizon. You believed them. We believed them. Until we didn’t.

I think back to all those weeks, and I wish I could come up with a good last word from you. I wish we had a moment together around that time when you said something to me that I could hold onto now. A meaningful sentence that could bring me a sense of closure. But I barely remember my own words from back then. I don’t even remember the last thing I said to you. Though I’m pretty sure I whispered in your ear at some point that it was OK to stop fighting. To give in and be at peace. But that might’ve been someone else.

Looking through all my voicemails, I can piece together likely last words from you to me. I have sixteen messages saved and the majority of them end two different ways. Most end with you saying, “I love you,” and the others end with, “bye.” So maybe I don’t actually need other words from you. Aren’t I love you and goodbye the best we can ask for?

I’m going to close my eyes and pretend that you sat up in that hospice bed and said to me, “You arrived. I love you. Goodbye.” And I’m going to imagine you saying those words over and over until they become the truth. Because I know deep down, that’s what you wanted to say to me. You just couldn’t find the words.

I love you, Mom.

And goodbye.

Love,

Rachel